BACK TO SCHOOL

This season sees designers leaning into the old trades of tailoring and ladies’ occasion wear, as previously outdated modes of dress are revamped. The kids are suiting and scrubbing up, writes Joseph Bobowicz from backstage

- Joseph Bobowicz

It’s been a funny few years for fashion when it comes to trends, or lack thereof. Indeed, aside from the relentless coining and killing of micro-fads (*insert the next -core, girl summer or postBrat marketing ploy), there’s been no real, let alone enduring, vibe shift on the runways. In London especially, a melting pot of reference points and broader disenchantment with the old selling protocols has paved the way for a hyper-varied offering. This season at London Fashion Week, for the first time since “streetwear” (shudders) was the word on every editor’s lips, an actual, real-life tendency has appeared – one that could be plotted with graphable data instead of dubious TikTok content.

Yes, the kids are suiting and scrubbing up, albeit on their own terms. Leaning into the old trades of tailoring and ladies’ occasion wear, London’s designers have been revamping the increasingly redundant and outdated modes of dressing with DIY inflections, diasporic nuances or, quite simply, mindblowing material innovation. Why this informal formality has taken the city by storm, it’s hard to say.

Arguably, it’s indicative of a broader, cultural turn. Gone are the days when young people – whether in blue-collar, white-collar or Society milieus – would clock off and slip into their casuals or glad rags, hailing a cab after laborious hours in front of the mirror getting tarted up. Now, you shut the laptop or leave the site, drop your pals a podcast-worthy voicenote and hop on a Lime bike straight to the club.

Certainly, this sense of transience was felt over at the sophomore show of Newgen recipient Luke Derrick, who heads up the eponymous Derrick label. Serving up luminescent suiting in hardy, specially developed nylons, Derrick merged tracksuit construction with Savile Row finesse. Crotches were cut to perfection, while glossy petroleum-hued and koi-orange blazers changed colour under the spotlights.